Real Characters Episode 35 Shining Like a Diamond compared to Democrats

                Adam Schiff is furious.  He has spent two weeks chairing an impeachment hearing and all the polls indicate that it didn’t go well.  He looks back at how he met with all his witnesses in closed door testimony and even barred the Republicans so he could coach them on what to say.  It still was a debacle as the Republicans exposed them for not having any concrete or hard evidence that Trump colluded with Ukraine to spy on Joe Biden.  All they had was speculation and their trying to read between the lines.  They even had one witness try to suggest that hearsay is better than first-hand knowledge.  As he is throwing a hissy fit in his office, he gets an idea.  He calls an aid and barks, “I need you to draft a subpoena”

                “Alright, who am I subpoenaing?  Do you have another witness?”

                “No, you’re going to send a subpoena to AT&T.”

                “We may have to challenge that in court.”

                “We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.  I already held secret backdoor hearings without the Republicans.  I can do whatever I wan, I’m untouchable.  I’m the most powerful person because nobody challenges my authority.”
                “Alright, what do you want from AT&T?”

                “I want the phone records of Devin Nunes and Rudy Giuliani”

                “The minority leader?”

                “Yes! He humiliated me on national television during the hearings.  Calling my closing statement ‘story time’ and to hide the children.   I’ll show him that I’m in charge now.”

                “I will draft the subpoena.”

                When Adam Schiff hangs up the phone his eyes light up even more than they usually do as he has come to a revelation.  He picks up the phone and calls the National Security Council where he has garnered a lot of friends from the Whistleblower Eric Ciaramella and most of his witnesses in the hearing.  He starts the conversation, “I need a favor.”

                “You need us to send more witnesses to make up stuff about Trump?”

                “No, we’re moving beyond that.  I need you to find out the phone number of John Solomon.”

                “The reporter?”

                “Yes, he’s eviscerated us and even our attacks on his prior employer, the Hill, to denounce him haven’t helped.  I want his phone number so I can spy on him.”

                “I don’t know.  The press if pretty protected in this country.”

                “Not anymore.  Only mainstream media reporters are defended.  Conservative reporters are fair game.”

                “I’m not sure that’s how it works.”         

                “I do.  If there’s any backlash, I’ll take full responsibilities but keep in mind the NSA spied on Trump and now he’s president and still nobody has been punished.  Even with the head of the NSA, Mike Rogers, shutting it down.  Even his cooperation didn’t make anyone go down.  You’ll be fine.”

                “Here you go.”

                “Thank you”

                Schiff calls his aid back and demands, “I need another subpoena for this phone number too.’

                “Whose is it?”

                “John Solomon”

                “Oh come on! A reporter?  This is border line communist tyranny”

                “Just do it!”

                “Didn’t you just try to impeach a president for asking Ukraine to investigate a political opponent, now you want to ask a corporation to do the same thing?”

                “It’s an American company so it’s okay”

                “Trump has remade the judiciary; you may not find a favorable judge on that one.”

                “Again, let AT&T make that decision.”

                The subpoena is sent to AT&T and it’s passed on to the decision maker.  They are asked, “What do we do?”

                “Look, if this guy can be a thorn in the side of the President of the United States, there’s no telling what he’ll do to us if we don’t comply.  Send the phone records.”

                “You really want to allow a congressman to have phone records of a political opponent?”

                “There’s no telling what these Democrats are going to do.  They’re loose cannons and it’s better to just stay out of their war path.  We’ll get called in and probably charged for refusing a congressman.  They’ll make up a law that we broke.  They made up laws against the President and it was given credibility.  What will they do to us?”

                “Alight, but people shouldn’t be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.”

                They send the phone records and Schiff releases them to the press to publish.  Every AT&T customers now knows that their information is no longer private and anyone that wants it will get it.  AT&T will not fight for their customers.  As the backlash gets deafening, people ask Schiff how he’s going to respond.  Schiff responds, “We’ll ignore it for a little while then if it doesn’t die down, we will claim that it was needed for the impeachment.”

                “But we got the phone records before Pelosi announced the formal impeachment.”

                “That’s why we’re waiting a little bit.  People will never remember that.  They’re too busy with their everyday lives to remember the timeline; even if it’s only a week or two.”

                Schiff gets a phone call from Pelosi.  After pleasantries Nancy asks, “Adam, what are you doing?”

                “I’m doing what we’ve been doing; attacking anyone that supports Trump.”

                “This may be crossing a line when you subpoena phone records for other congressmen and reporters.”

                “I’ve been getting that a lot lately.  Bottom line is; we need to keep our narrative straight.”

                “What narrative would that be?”

                “If you believe Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, you must also believe that Russia didn’t.”

                “That’s absurd though.  They both could have.”

                “No, that’s not what we tell people.”

                “Everyone knows that Putin isn’t our friend.  No Republican is saying the Russians are our allies.”

                “The intelligence community unanimously concluded that Russia, not Ukraine, interfered in the 2016 election.”

                “That’s not even true.  Who do you think you’re fooling?  We’re on the same side.  The intelligence community never said that Ukraine didn’t meddle.  All they said was that Russia did.”

                “You don’t understand.  When we impeach Trump and the Republican Senate dismisses or doesn’t remove him from office, we can say that the Republicans said no Russian interference because they said Ukraine interfered.  We need to start now with the notion that it has to be either or.  Either Ukraine meddled or Russia did; not both.”

                “We need something better.”

                “When we find it, we’ll go with it.  But right now, that’s the best we got.”

                “I hope not.”

                “Well, they’re all comingled.  We keep hammering home that Ukraine election interference is a discredited theory.”

                “The Republicans keep bringing up the Politico article that admits Ukraine was scrambling to make amends after openly supporting Hillary by meddling in our elections to attack Trump.”

                “I know and the New York Times had an article on 12/12/18 entitled, “Ukraine Court Rules Manafort Disclosure Cause Meddling in US Election.”

                “So you understand it’s a hard sell.”

                “No, because people have no memories.  Remember, we’re the party that destroys history.  We are progressives; we always move forward and vilify anyone that looks back.  We deny tradition and conventional wisdom and learning from our past.  There is no past with us.”

                “Adam, I’m really concerned you’re beginning to believe your own lies.  We are strategic but we know we’re full of shit.”

                “I’m talking strategy.  Next, we need to say that Trump pursued an investigation into a discredited claim into the Bidens.”

                “Even though George Kent and other witnesses you called all admitted they were also suspicious of Hunter Biden getting the seat on the board of Burisma, the leading Ukrainian energy company, when he had no experience in energy.  All this was when Joe Biden, his father, was not only the Vice President but the point man in Ukraine.  He should have recued himself.”

                “Yes, all to promote that Trump wanted to investigate this to help him win in 2020 by destroying Biden.”

                “I don’t think President Trump is afraid of Joe Biden.  Biden is kind of losing it.  He forgets what state he’s on half the time.  He’s irritable and lashes out at people who ask questions at town halls.  He keeps telling creepy stories not realizing he’s being creepy.  Trust me, the President doesn’t fear Biden.”

                “The only reason Trump wanted to investigate the Bidens is to help him win in 2020.”

                “We just had two weeks of hearings that disproved that theory.  See also what I just told you about Biden.”

                “This is our story.  We are going to stick to it.  What do we have to lose?  There’s 55 Republicans Senators; only 45 Democrat and we need 66 votes to remove.  That’s probably not going to happen so we need to stick together on this.”

                “You’ve used that line a lot and it seems to just keep backfiring.  Unfortunately, I keep coming to the same conclusion.  We’ve passed the point of no return.  Can’t turn back now so we just got to keep going forward.”

                “Exactly”

                “Good bye Adam”

                “Good Bye Nancy.”

                Adam Schiff hung up the phone and gave a devilish grin.  He liked being able to boss around the Speaker of the House.  She was so afraid of the leftist push by the Democrats the last few years, that she thought they’d take the speaker away from her.  Although Schiff liked the title of being Speaker, he also was content with being the Speaker’s puppet master.  That way, if they fail, Pelosi gets all the blame and he can go about his merry way. 

               

                While Schiff is defying the constitution and being a police state tyrant, Donald Trump is overseas negotiating with the United States’ NATO allies.  While President Trump is showing strength by calling out leaders like Trudeau for not paying their fair share, Nadler is falling asleep in his own hearing that he is chairing.  Donald Trump is back in his room after a day of negotiating with the world leaders.  Just a couple weeks ago, he heard witnesses accuse him that the very act of talking to the head of another country is impeachable because it’s intimidating to talk to the President of the United States so everything the President says is a threat.  By that logic, he’s been threatening people all day.  He calls someone in his budget office and asks, “Do we have the economic numbers yet?”

                “I was going to wait till tomorrow as I know you had a long day.”

                “You should know by now I rarely sleep.”

                “Yes, well, the economy added 266,000 jobs in November.”

                “That’s sensational.  I think they were estimating half of that.”

                “Less Mr. President, they predicted 117,000.”

                “This is good news, they keep underestimating me.  That helps with the market as it prepares for mediocre and gets great.  How do the rest of the numbers look?”

                “The unemployment drops to a new low of 3.5%, the already record breaking Hispanic unemployment is even lower so you broke your own record there.”

                “Keep talking; I’m enjoying this.”

                “Wages continue to go up and just like always, it’s growing at a faster rate among lower income workers.”

                “What’s the bottom line?”

                “The GDP growth is over 2%”

                President Trump sighed, “Still can’t get to that elusive 3%.  I had it but then they revised it.  Maybe if I pass this new tax bill we can get there.”

                “Speaking about revising the numbers, they revised last quarter numbers.”

                “They screwed me again?”

                “No, the numbers were adjusted up.”

                “Oh, good.  They finally did something honest.”

                “Good numbers all around I got one more for you sir.”

                “You just keep holding out on me” Trump says with a smile, “What else you got?”

                “CNS news just came up with your approval numbers.  You’re up to 52% now.  The funny thing is, they released that information the same day Nancy Pelosi announced her formal impeachment.”

                President Trump laughs, “I don’t think that was a coincidence “

                These fantastic numbers have made their way to the Democrats as well.  A high ranking member of the DNC looks at them and shakes her head, “This is ridiculous.  Trump has these numbers and we got professor Karlan making fun of a 13-year-old boy.”

                One of her staffers replies, “The Washington Examiner pulled no punches and called it a Flaming Bag of Dogshit.”

                “Between that and our leading candidate, Biden, yelling at a voter in Iowa for asking him about his son, we’re not looking too good.  He called him a fat liar and challenged him to a push up contest.”

                “Well, to be fair, the liar and fat comments were separated”

                “That doesn’t make it any better.”

                “Especially since he thought he was in Ohio when he was in Iowa”

                “It’s amazing how often that happens to him.”

                “Well, we still have the media.  They’ll ignore the good numbers and highlight our talking points.”

                “Given that CNN just hit a three year low in ratings, I’m not sure if that is going to be very helpful anymore.”

                “Between the Russian collusion narrative blowing up in our faces and the impeachment drama, it’s hard for CNN to keep their credibility.”

                “That’s what I’m saying.  The American people are getting wise to our tactics.”

                “Not just that but we’re massively in debt and the Republicans have a 62 million dollar surplus. Money keeps flowing in the more Nadler and Schiff have hearings.”

                “So what do we do?”

                “I’m not sure but we need to figure out something or else we’re going to lose 2020 in a landslide.”

                “Given a lot of states are going to ignore their voters and go by the popular vote, it may not be too bad for us.”

                “Unless Trump wins the popular vote.”

                “That’s impossible”

                “As impossible as him beating Hillary?”

                The DNC head has a concerned and quizzical look on her face, “Yea, just as impossible.”

                “With 34% approval rating in the black vote, record low Hispanic unemployment, our base has been affected greatly.  It’s possible.”

                The 2020 election cycle is in full force now.  The good news for the Democrats is they have a year for this momentum to reverse itself.  Right now, though, it seems the Republicans have the slight advantage.